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MaxL_1023

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  1. MaxL_1023
    Watch out for Lili though!
  2. MaxL_1023
    This is an artifact of the physics system and the change to "on-rails" motion. I find that if you gradually increase your warp (1-10-100-1000 instead of 1-1000 directly) this happens less often.
  3. MaxL_1023
    That causes the 40km mountains. I think it scales the heightmap before applying landscape, so setting it to 0.1 preserves the height values while stretching all slopes out by a factor of 10.
  4. MaxL_1023
    Is there any way to tune the landscape to maintain some semblance of a slope in 10x scale without having the terrain 10 times higher? Most of Gael's land is now about 10 KM high and I need to watch out for mountains when in Low Orbit (not quite afaik, but close lol). I want to make the mountains close to normal height without flattening them out - is there a way to have steep areas maintain their normal size while stretching flatter areas? The only other thing I could think of would be to take the texture maps, clone them to make 100 tiles (covering the area of the larger body) then put some sort of randomizer on it do cut and paste terrain elements. If I tried this, I would probably blow up my computer before making something that looks reasonable.
  5. MaxL_1023
    These part test contracts often involve a part from a node one tech level more advanced that what you have researched. When you accept it, you are allowed to use the part until you complete the contract. Basically, you got an "experimental" version. When you complete the contract, you lose that part until you research it normally. You should be allowed to use the spark if you have accepted a contract to test it - the green box means that it is experimental. Do you still have a skipper on your rocket (did you re-use the booster?) - that would explain the issue. Can you send a screenshot of your error message, the contract and the rocket you are trying to launch?
  6. MaxL_1023
    If you can manage Eve, try Tellumo in Galileo's planet pack. It has roughly the same gravity (1.9 G) but with 10 atmospheres on the surface. It also has a very annoying moon which rotates faster than its orbital velocity, meaning your ship will literally be thrown off.
  7. MaxL_1023
    Generally, the lighter the molecular weight of the exhaust gas the better the ISP, as it is proportional to the exhaust velocity. However, the thrust decreases assuming the same number of propellant molecules being accelerated. Argon is harder to store in quantity due to its lower molecular mass and lower boiling point. I also am pretty sure that Argon is harder to ionize than Xenon, so that extra energy might offset the efficiency gain from a lighter propellant. The ion thrust is as much a limitation of the physics engine as anything - KSP can't calculate a continuous thrust trajectory. The patched conic approximation gives you trouble when you are dealing with realistic ion propulsion - a constant thrust trajectory will have a major discontinuity when crossing SOI boundaries and will end up putting you in a completely different spot than real physics would lead you. I would love to use Ions in RSS if I could just do the burns on autopilot at 1000x warp - it makes a lot of sense for mercury probes, multiple-asteroid missions in RSS Extended or for anything which wants to sit at a Lagrangian point (which we sadly don't have - I want to put the Kerbal Space Telescope at L2 DAMMIT!). Either way, Ions are fine as implemented. They are not really overpowered (good luck landing on anything larger than Minmus with them) but have a substantial niche. If anything, I would want to see a slightly better physics engine to smooth out SOI transitions.
  8. MaxL_1023
    It does make sense either way - in RSS you usually don't notice atmospheric heating or significant drag until near or under 100 km, maybe 105-110km if you are approaching from the Moon or Interplanetary space. The 1.25 factor should reduce my G-load to something that doesn't turn Jeb into a pancake, especially since the stock pods can't offset for a lifting re-entry. I used to like coming in from the Moon in RSS on a lifting path, then rolling at PE to use the atmospheric lift to keep me at close to a steady height. I would be doing a 10 km/s forced orbit at 60 KM, decelerating at 3-4 G's until I dropped below orbital velocity. I just came in from Iota in a Mk I pod and pulled about 15 G with an entry PE of about 35 KM - any higher and I was afraid I would skip off the atmosphere.
  9. MaxL_1023
    Thanks - that seems reasonable. I did not know you had the scale height function at 0.8x realistic - it does explain a few things. Funnily enough, it seems like the heat is not that bad with the sigma scaling - it must already be compensated for. The G-forces are quite severe though even on a very flat entry angle - I suspect that atmosphere scaling is responsible. I will set atmosphere height to 1.25 and see if I need to mess with pressure curves from there.
  10. MaxL_1023
    Gotta love sigma - in 10x Iota looks 8-bit due to the texture map scaling. In today's hipster culture that is a feature!
  11. MaxL_1023
    I must say - it is am impressive sight to re-enter the atmosphere by passing through a 60km high, 10 km thick cloud deck which just clears the summit of a 35-40km volcano, all at 7.5 km/s with Jeb trying to figure out whether or not there were mushrooms in his space rations!
  12. MaxL_1023
    I'll just mess around with the 30km volcanoes then. I want a reason to make 5000 ton rockets besides trying to knock Gael off its orbit. Also, the clouds are in space now. I need more practice with this...
  13. MaxL_1023
    Hey - I am trying to use Sigma Dimensions to scale up the solar system. I am using the following settings: // Base Settings SigmaDimensions { Resize = 10 Rescale = 11 Atmosphere = 1 dayLengthMultiplier = 4 } // Advanced Settings @SigmaDimensions { geeASLmultiplier = 1 landscape = 1 atmoVisualEffect = 1 resizeScatter = 1 CustomSoISize = 0 CustomRingSize = 10 atmoASL = 1 tempASL = 1 scanAltitude = 1 } This should make everything realistic scale while keeping rings from being inside the planet. What I am not sure about is the atmospheres. Could I find the scale heights anywhere? That way, I can write my own pressure curves to keep the atmosphere heights reasonable instead of hitting a wall at 70km. I know in stock scale the exponential curve is truncated somehow, and I want to avoid this to make re-entry more realistic. Also, any suggestions for the landscape? Having a volcano 30km high is epic, but slightly worrying for when I am re-entering. Thanks for any ideas you guys have!
  14. MaxL_1023

    Everyone download Galileo's planet pack! Now with twice as many moons and 3.4*1065 more epic scenery!

  15. MaxL_1023
    I usually build my rockets from the top down. Start with the payload you want to put into GTO, including whatever engines it has. In this case, I assume that the GTO-GEO would be done by the satellite itself unless I have an efficient, restartable engine available (think RL-10 or Aestus II). I then pick an engine about 4-5 times more powerful than whatever I would need to have a TWR of about 0.8 if it was just the payload. I then stick fuel tanks until I get a TWR of 0.8 with the new engine. I repeat this (4-5 stage to stage thrust ratio) with a TWR of 0.8 for anything less than about 2000 m/s short of orbit, 1.0 for a stage igniting in atmosphere, and 1.25 on the pad. The results usually work fine for me. I normally make a custom launcher for every payload, since the "no restarts" for many otherwise excellent engines means a lighter payload would just waste the extra fuel you can carry. Later in the tech tree you can get away with this kind of generic launching.
  16. MaxL_1023
    Nice - thanks!
  17. MaxL_1023
    Alright - here are my graphics settings: At 110km, here is what Ceti looks like (thanks cheat menu) (That is one sexy sphere, or something. Maybe Jeb's been in the capsule too long...) Now, here is what is looks like 30 seconds later after editing my orbit down to 100km: It looks like my camera loses focus, or I have beer goggles. It probably is not your fault - after all animating a planet as actual 3D instead of a picture is hard. I just want to make sure it isn't just me, because I really want to land on something which looks like the first picture. I'd download a balloon mod for anything with an atmosphere so I can just float around and farm scenery shots.
  18. MaxL_1023
    The tank weights are a game balance decision. So is the fact that ion engines produce more than a thousand times as much thrust as they should. With realistic tank weights and "balanced" ion engines it would be too easy to get to other planets. The same would be true to some degree with realistic LFO tank weights - SSTO rockets would be trivial (not spaceplanes) due to the lower delta-v requirements. The tank weights are a compromise with the simplified engine mechanics (unlimited ignitions + throttling) and the scaled down solar system. Changing one would require change to the others. You can try RO when it is updated for 1.2.1 -> it has realistic tank weights. I had it on accidentally without putting in RSS, and the minuteman solid fuel booster (basically a thumper in stock) launched my Mk.I pod onto an escape trajectory.
  19. MaxL_1023
    In my game, the detail appears to decrease as I get closer, with a massive loss in resolution when I cross the heightmap thresholds. It may be my graphics settings though - I will go through them in more detail tomorrow when I start up KSP. I had them tuned downwards a bit from when I was trying to run RSS/RP-0 on the 32-bit engine. By realistic change, I mean an alteration to the planet rendering which would maintain equal angular resolution as the render distance varies. I do not know enough about the KSP engine to determine if this is possible or feasible - Galileo works hard enough to begin with! The resolution of the Human eye is about 1 arc-minute, so when scaled onto a screen to represent normal vision, a body which takes up almost half the sky (think Gael/Kerbin from the top of the Atmosphere) would need about 10800 pixels in a line. You will never need more than that to match visual resolution due to the change in viewing area as bodies are closely approached. If you scale this resolution down by 5 (to 2160 pixels) you basically are at computer monitor resolution. Ideally, there would be an algorithm which would take a heightmap/texture visible at a reference point (think Ceti at 100 KM) then supply the additional resolution by adding fractal-based random terrain noise and texture patterns from a pre-defined library. Things like small craters, color variations and rocks/cliffs would be randomly generated and superimposed on a heightmap. Assuming the size vs frequency of the terrain features falls a logarithmic roll-off with a slope greater than 1 (10 times larger variability is 10 times rarer) truly random terrain variation can be added to an arbitrary scale without diverging from the heightmap. I would call it planet detail by frequency domain, but I may just be one booster short of a stack.
  20. MaxL_1023
    Nice. From what I see, it looks like the whole body gets blurred out, like switching from maximum to minimum graphics. Iota and Ceti are also quite small - smaller than the Mun I believe. I wish I knew more about graphics rendering so I could contribute something besides gameplay feedback - I honestly don't know what is a realistic change.
  21. MaxL_1023
    There are limits to what can be implemented without severely disrupting gameplay. Spaceplanes are only really feasible to begin with because of the downscaling of the Kerbin system - in stock you can get a better payload fraction with a rocket SSTO (think a Reliant or Vector lifting a pod + a bunch of fuel tanks) than you can get in RSS/RO using multistage rockets. The rapier is too good in air-breathing mode to begin with - jet engines can't produce thrust easily at Mach 3.6, and the ones that do are not designed to have oxidizer dumped into the combustion chamber to go "rocket mode." In Stock, jet engines can get you more than halfway to orbit (1500 m/s is quite possible using Rapiers in air breathing mode, with 1000 m/s easy). In RSS/RO, 1500 m/s won't really get you out of the atmosphere, and you somehow need to find another ~7 km/s of delta-V to get into LEO (assuming you are following a normal gravity turn when you reach that speed). An air breathing engine would have trouble pushing enough fuel to give that much delta-V - their TWR is much lower than rocket engines (think ~5 vs 100+) even factoring out the lack of oxidizer. The technology for Practical SSTO vehicles does not exist and is not really being tested yet - KSP having feasible spaceplanes is already a stretch. Edit: The concept venturestar spaceplane uses Hydrolox aerospikes and would mass 1000 tons to put 20 into LEO. Not exactly payload efficient.
  22. MaxL_1023
    Is the heightmap at a lower resolution than the ground texture? I thought it would be easier for them to be equivalent (1 pixel equals a triangular section 1 arc-second in phi converging to a point one arc-second in theta poleward of it for example) but if KSP is doing something different than I guess that is all you can do.
  23. MaxL_1023
    Is there any way to make the planets keep their detail from distant view (>100 km for Ceti, 50 km for Iota, etc.) on close approach and landing, or it an engine/performance issue? This planet pack is the first one I have ever seen where the planets actually look better artistically than what KSP seems to want to draw in 3D. I may be playing KSP on a toaster.
  24. MaxL_1023
    Well then. Due to launchpad limitations (hardish career with 50% funds ftw) my Tellumo orbiter mission didn't quite have enough delta-V to safely capture into a decent orbit and then return to Gael. The funny thing is, I had enough fuel to divert onto a near free-return (maintaining my AP at Tellumo and my PE at Gael-s orbit), do a 600m/s course correction to intercept Gael on that orbit AND to circularize into a 400km polar orbit back at Gael for scansat shenanigans. In short, Tellumo looks pretty, but is one Gigantic Gravioli-infested brute of a body. Bring LOTS of rocket fuel unless you want to try aerobraking at 6 km/s.
  25. MaxL_1023
    This version of GPP works fine for KSP 1.2.1 - I have been using it with no issues beyond being so distracted by the map screen that I forget to go anywhere. On a different note, can claws grip non-asteroid bodies? I want to land on Lili at some point but its superrotation is really messing my plans up. I need some sort of anchor unless I want to have an engine pointing upwards.
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